1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the integration of telephone and internet services and protocols. More particularly, the invention relates to a system whereby an internet co-socket may be associated with a standard telephone call.
2. Description of the Related Art
Call set-up technology used to establish telephone connections across the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is well known; several call set-up strategies for Internet telephony are emerging. Multimedia telephony is also emerging whereby various types of multimedia calls may be established to carry voice, video, and data. Multimedia calls are traditionally expensive and often consume large amounts of bandwidth, especially if real-time video is involved. Multimedia calls are also traditionally more complex to establish and often require technical support personnel to run specialized multimedia telephony equipment. One form of multimedia call which does not require extra telephone bandwidth is a voice-over-data modem link. Voice-over-data modems allow voice to be compressed and routed across a modem connection along with data. While being economical, these types of calls are still much more tedious to set up than an ordinary direct-dial telephone call. Simple multimedia call set-up strategies are provided on mixed-media packet networks such as those employing asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and internet protocol (IP) technologies. Methods and apparatus are still needed to provide simple and economical forms of multimedia telephony which allow users to transparently set up multimedia calls involving both the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and mixed-media packet switched networks.
Computer telephony integration (CTI) is also a well known and rapidly advancing technology. Examples of CTI systems include interactive voice response (IVR) call centers whereby callers call in on a phone line and respond to digitized voice menu prompts with dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) signals (i.e., “touch tones”). The call center's IVR computer decodes the touch tone values and either provides information or routes a call accordingly. Some call centers use speech recognition in lieu of, or in addition to, touch tones. In many systems a caller can be identified using call line identification (CLID) information which is commonly known as “Caller-ID.” CLID information may be derived from automatic number identification (ANI) information used to track billing in a central office switch. Signaling system number seven (SS7) links carry CLID and/or ANI information across a PSTN. SS7 call set-up information is carried on a common signaling channel separate from channels used to carry voice traffic.
The PSTN is the traditional telephone network made up of local-exchange carriers (LECs), competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and long distance inter-exchange carriers (IXCs). With the recent advent of internet telephony gateway servers, some PSTN calls may be partially carried over an internet to avoid tolls. For the purposes of the discussion herein, calls originating or terminating in the PSTN but partially routing over an internet via a gateway server are still considered to be PSTN calls. It is recognized that certain elements of the PSTN network may adopt packet switched techniques similar to an internet. For the purposes of the discussion herein, calls which represent plain old telephone service (POTS) and integrated services digital network (ISDN) but are carried across a packet switched IXC or LEC are also considered PSTN calls. For the purpose of brevity, a campus call which uses POTS or ISDN over standard telephone wiring and is switched by a PBX is considered a PSTN call. A call which originates using a packet switched protocol such as H.323 or other form of native multimedia packetized call is not considered to be a PSTN call.
In the present disclosure, a distinction is made between “an internet” and “the Internet”. The term “internet” (lower case) is meant to apply broadly to any type of mixed media packet switched network. For example, an internet may be a local area network (LAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a wide area network (WAN), an enterprise network or a modernized public network. In most present day situations, networks of different types are joined by what is properly termed an internet. Hence an internet is a network of two or more networks joined together, normally by a bridge, router, or switch. Within the present disclosure, an “internet” refers to a network which may be joined to another network using a properly selected bridge, router, or switch. A network which is in fact isolated, for the purposes of the discussion herein, may also be defined as an internet. Conversely, the term “Internet” (upper case) refers to the ubiquitous world wide web (WWW). In most cases, a given internet is connected to and hence is a part of the Internet. Some other types of internets which may not be connected to the Internet include, for example, various enterprise WANs and some cable television (CATV) networks. Hence, “the Internet” is but one example of “an internet”, and thus all uses of the word “internet” herein shall apply directly to, but are not limited to, “the Internet.”
There are a wide variety of known CTI systems. One system is called “screen pop.” Screen pop systems recognize incoming phone numbers using CLID type information and display a screen containing information about the caller to an agent. For example, screen pop may provide an agent with a screen of information including the caller's name, personal data, buying habits, and needs. The CLID information may also be used by CTI switching apparatus to route an incoming call to an appropriate agent based on the caller's profile. These features enhance customer satisfaction and eliminate the need to ask the caller for information which may already be in an available database. Another CTI system is called screen transfer. When a call needs to be transferred from a first agent to a second agent, the CTI information screens and data associated with the call may be transferred to the second agent. Another form of CTI involves outbound dialing. An outbound dialer is a computer telephony device which dials telephone numbers to initiate telephone calls.
In call center applications, a caller navigates the IVR menu system to select an area of interest so the call can be routed to an appropriate agent. Calls to call center oriented IVRs often require the caller to wait in a waiting queue until an agent becomes available to accept the call. In most cases the caller may wait several minutes before an agent becomes available. In more extreme cases the caller may need to wait as many as fifteen minutes, for example. An average call to an IVR call center typically involves too long of a wait in a queue. Beside offering poor customer service, long waiting queues cost companies with WVR call centers significant amounts of money. If a company has a 1-800/888 number, the company will often pay on the order of twenty cents per minute for the caller to wait in the queue. Also, the longer the queue, the more active calls the call center will need to support at a given time. This means the call center must purchase more local loop telephone lines each month from the LEC. For example, a relatively small call center with ten to twenty operators may require the equivalent of 200 or more phone lines to be able to accommodate peak traffic loads without returning busy signals. Aggregated over the United States, millions of dollars per day are spent by call centers to pay for the toll charges of callers navigating IVR systems and waiting in queues. Millions of more dollars are spent each month on the local lines needed to accommodate these callers waiting in the queues.
Another related problem is faced by organizations not having 1-800/888 numbers. If a caller makes an out-of-pocket toll call and has to wait in a queue more than a few minutes, the caller will often terminate the call. Hence the recipient organization will lose the benefit of the call, which in the commercial context may equate to significant lost revenue.
Several prior art solutions have been proposed to deal with the foregoing problems. One such system is known as “call-back.” Here a caller calls the call center, navigates an IVR menu system, and is offered the option to hang up so the IVR system can call back in an estimated number of minutes. The caller is entered into a call queue and the connection is dropped. When the caller's time arrives, the system will call the caller back, thus saving the expense of leaving the line busy while waiting in the queue. This solution is attractive because the caller can be freed to do other tasks while waiting for the call-back. This increases customer satisfaction while at the same time the company handling the call saves money on telephone line and toll charges. One difficulty implicit in this approach is customer trust. Many call centers use variants of this approach where the caller is not called back in a timely fashion, often not even in the same day. Hence callers are often untrusting of the system and reluctant to hang up. Accordingly, such systems typically enjoy only limited use.
Another approach to solving the telephone queue problem is through the use an Internet call center such as the Internet Call Center recently announced by Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J. In this approach a customer does not make a phone call but accesses a company's call center through the Internet. A standard web browser is used to access the Internet call center by either keying in a URL, finding Internet call center using a search engine, or clicking on a browser bookmark which references the Internet call center. In the Lucent system, an IVR system is replaced by a set of Internet browser-related dialog forms. Hence the user accesses the call center via the Internet, navigates a set of menus, and then, if needed, clicks on a button displayed in the browser with a mouse which requests an agent to call back through the Internet using Internet telephony voice packetization methods. In this way, the user is called back through the Internet and is able to talk to an agent using a multimedia PC. All of the CTI related features such as screen pop and screen transfer are available just as though the user had entered the system using a regular telephone. This system has the advantage that no telephone charges are incurred, all data and voice traffic occurs through the Internet, saving a significant amount of money for the company operating the Internet Call Center. In addition, the Internet Call center is compatible with a normal 1-800/888 call center, so agents may interact with callers entering the system through the normal phone lines or via the Internet. In either case, the same types of screen pop and screen transfer technologies may be used. A disadvantage with using this system relates to user access. An Internet call center is designed primarily to attract web users. Many users may find it difficult or tedious to find a given web site. Users may desire to call a company over the telephone network as is common practice rather than search for a web site. Hence an innovative way is needed to obtain the benefits of an Internet call center technology while providing a simple telephone access technique.
Another known technology is called “web call-back.” This is a newer version of normal PSTN call-back as discussed above. In this technology, a user navigates the Internet to reach a destination web call center. The user manipulates Internet screens using a web browser instead of a set of IVR menus, similarly to the Lucent system previously described. In web call-back, when the user selects a button, he/she will receive a call back via the PSTN from a call center associated with the Internet site. Since the call-back is placed over the PSTN, the resulting connection maintains quality and a greater degree of security. Some web call-back systems display a timer on a client web browser indicative of when the PSTN telephone call-back may be expected. Other systems are not time oriented, and may require the user to wait several days before being called back. One problem with this technique is that the user must be able to locate the associated web site. Often a user will know a 1-800/888 number and will find it convenient to call such a number instead of navigating the Internet. In situations involving local entities such as restaurants and movie theaters, the associated phone number may be known while it is less clear how to find the entity on the web. This problem is most pronounced because smaller local entities do not generally have easily identified domain names and addresses. Another problem with current web call-back systems is that the timer only provides knowledge of when a call will arrive. It does not give the user the ability to interact with the scheduling of the return call which may be advantageous as will be described with respect to an aspect of the invention described herein below. Hence while web call-back has definite merits, it still has shortcomings and limitations which need to be overcome.
Additional services are emerging which provide “web dial tone” to H.323 IP telephone users. Note “IP” stands for “internet protocol,” and H.323 represents a packetized IP telephony protocol whereby voice and video telephone calls may be transmitted and received over an internet such as the Internet. Callers may initiate H.323 phone calls by dialing a web based telephone number. H.323 call centers may respond by providing video of a live agent. Also, a form of screen pop known as “data conferencing” may also be employed. Here the agent can see screens synchronized with a user's web browser and can “push” webpages and the like to a caller's browser. Similarly, peer-to-peer data conferences may be established for multimedia communication between colleagues. A data conference is a real-time multimedia telephony session whereby two or more user's may share images, computer screens, documents and other similar information while also being able to talk and exchange video. While existing systems allow a PSTN caller to patch into a data conference, the PSTN caller is limited to voice. A system is therefore needed to allow PSTN callers to enjoy toll quality voice and to set up data conferencing services with a computer attached to an internet.
The Internet is rapidly evolving to provide new means of access. For example, so-called “Web-TV” is a technology whereby inexpensive Internet appliances may be installed and operated using the television (TV) set as a display monitor while a CATV network provides Internet service. In these systems, the cable system provides the link layer interface to the user, and hence home Web-TV users will have a telephone free to make and receive PSTN calls while the CATV network provides internet service. A link layer interface is a signaling protocol combined with a physical channel and is used to carry data between stations. Also, as asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) and related DSL technologies become prevalent, users will be able to support regular phone calls and extra digital services on the same twisted pair telephone line. Thus DSL subscribers will also be able to leave a telephone line free while being connected to the internet. Office workers and growing numbers of home users already have access to both a telephone line and a separate internet connection. Thus many users will use the Internet for packet transfers and a telephone line for toll quality circuit switched voice traffic. As Internet bandwidth increases and delays decrease, better quality Internet telephony voice circuits will also become available. This will allow user's to both place internet telephony calls and access traditional internet services using a single internet connection.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,412 (hereinafter “the '412 patent”), a method and apparatus are disclosed which allows internet data to be appended to CLID packets. This patent discloses a message structure to allow callers to send a called party a message, to include a multimedia message via a CLID type packet. The invention disclosed in the '412 patent relates primarily to allowing a called party to receive a CLID notification which permits the called party to contact the caller over the internet. The patent envisions sending a screen of information, an e-mail address, a uniform resource locator (URL) to a home page, an FTP site, or other information. The concept enables a form of mixed PSTN and internet messaging from the caller to the call recipient. However, the invention set forth in the '412 patent does not provide a means to allow such information to be used 1) to save toll charges related to call centers and IVR systems; 2) to enable more efficient web call-back systems; or 3) to provide real-time multimedia phone calls. Hence a more capable approach is needed to send information via new forms of CLID packets which can address these problems.
Based on the foregoing, it would be desirable to have a system which integrates aspects of computer telephony with Internet services and Internet telephony. Such a system ideally would retain aspects of known CTI systems such as call-back and web call-back to reduce telephone toll charges while at the same time improving customer service. It would also be desirable if a caller could access a call center using a PSTN telephone number such as a 1-800/888 or a local number, and would be able to transfer a PSTN call to an internet session.
Similarly, it would be useful to allow a caller to call a PSTN telephone number and subsequently use an internet browser to perform those actions or selections currently performed using IVR. Such an integrated PSTN/internet capability would avoid the need for the caller to wait on hold on a telephone line while increasing customer satisfaction and reducing line charges and 1-800/888 related toll charges.
Another desirable feature lacking in prior art systems relates to allowing a caller and an agent to converse using a toll-quality voice connection. This type of arrangement permits business transactions to occur while also providing the ability to jointly view information provided by screen pop, screen transfer, database access, and related CTI features. Additionally, providing a caller waiting in a telephone queue the ability to perform other tasks (including making other telephone calls and waiting in multiple call queues simultaneously). would be of great utility
The foregoing concept of automatically setting up an internet session in response to a PSTN telephone call would also be useful to enable various forms of multimedia communication. A telephone connection is established between a caller and a callee through the PSTN or other form of telecommunications network in response to a call placed by the caller. It would be useful to automatically provide a shared-screen of information visible on computer screens to both the caller and the callee on both sides of the telephone connection. Such communication would also include the ability to converse and share information over an inventive link which enables full service data conferencing to become automatically associated with a PSTN telephone call.
It would further be desirable to support a voice-over-data type service without the need to make point-to-point modem calls, and provide the capability to support multimedia data conferencing services associated with PSTN calls.